


Dragonheart

by CaptainLeBubbles



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Fire Lizards, Gen, Impression (Dragonriders of Pern)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 04:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21247790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: Failing to Impress a dragon sends young Teador out onto the beaches to sulk, where he discovers a nest of fire lizards ready to hatch.





	Dragonheart

**Author's Note:**

> No, I'm not writing Pern fic now.
> 
> So what's this? Back in '14 some rp partners and I had a collected Pern au, and we had several ocs running around to help flesh out the verse. One of mine, T'dor (Bronze Taranth), even got his own fanfic to go with his backstory! Anyway this is that, unedited because I don't feel like it. I reread it the other day and I'm actually still really proud of it so I thought I'd toss it up.

Teador left early that morning, when the dawn was just touching the sea, carrying his net and a fish hamper and nothing else. He walked up the beach for hours, dropping his net into any rock pool that seemed promising and slowly filling his hamper, fuming to himself over how easily he’d let his brothers get to him.

It wasn’t _fair_. It just _wasn’t fair_.

To be chosen for candidacy, to be taken to the weyr to stand on the sands and then to fail at Impression. It _just. Wasn’t. Fair._

Teador kicked irritably at a rock and was satisfied when it skimmed across the wave-damp sand. The distance was cathartic, so he looked around for another to kick, and stopped short when he saw the mound.

It couldn’t be. He hurried over. It _couldn’t_ be.

He knelt and brushed the sand away. It was!

A fire lizard nest! And very close to hatching if he was any judge. He smoothed the sand away from the eggs and counted. Many of the eggs were flat, their contents having been devoured early on by hungry tunnel snakes. Others, when he touched them, seemed hollow, as though their occupants had not bothered developing. But almost a dozen had hardened to hatching levels, and seemed as much to be warm from an internal heat as an external one.

He should take them back to the hold. Fire lizards were in high demand, and these could be distributed among those deserving. But…

Something made him hesitate. He wasn’t sure if he could get them back in time for distribution. Or at all. Nor could he guarantee that he would get one. Even if he’d found them and by rights should have first pick, would their Holder agree? He doubted it. Their Holder was a practical man; he would want to give them to his workers. Fire lizards were good help to fishermen, when properly trained. A half-grown boy wouldn’t warrant high enough on his list to get one.

Memories of his failed Impression entered unbidden into his mind. The anguish, the disappointment of watching the dragons flop inelegantly over themselves, seeking that mind in the crowd that would be tied to theirs for the rest of their lives, and to have none of them look to him.

Of course, there were always going to be disappointed candidates. But it had never occurred to him that he would be one of them.

Well, not this time. There were nearly a dozen eggs here- he counted nine in total- and only one of him. He’d have plenty of choices, maybe he could even Impress two if he was careful. It wasn’t a dragon, but at least then he would know that he _could_ Impress.

He looked over the eggs with a critical, proprietary eye, and finally selected the two biggest, setting them slightly aside from their fellows. One of them was bound to be a bronze, and hopefully there might even be a queen. A queen! That would show those bully boys at the hold that he wasn’t just some un-Impressable runt!

He hastily shut down that line of thinking. He remembered the hours the candidates had spent with the eggs, touching them, talking to them, caressing them. Gentle thoughts were advised when dealing with hatchlings, and he had no way of knowing how soon before hatching that the inhabitants’ empathic abilities would develop. Instead, he concentrated on thoughts of welcome, and of affection; of happy anticipation for their arrival.

He sat down to wait, gutting the fish he’d caught and cutting them into small, hatchling-friendly chunks. There would be no good if he failed Impression because he couldn’t feed his hatchling fast enough.

The tide was coming in. Teador looked at the tideline and frowned. The eggs were below it- no doubt they had been fine below the tideline before, but what if they hatched while it was in? The hatchlings would drown before they ever got to experience life. That thought was unbearable.

He took off his tunic so he was bare to the waste and laid it on the ground. Then he piled hot sand on it and transferred the eggs, carefully, oh-so-carefully, to it, setting his special two aside again. Then he piled more hot sand around them and dragged them slowly up the beach, high above the tideline, overlooked by a low cliff. That would discourage any wherries looking to make the clutch their next meal.

Then he sat down and waited awhile more.

The sun was high overhead, the fish were all cut up and ready and in danger of rotting, and Teador was beginning to think he’d been too hasty in his assumption that the eggs would hatch today. He was already thinking of transferring the eggs to his hamper and heading home when one rocked, and then another. He sat up. It was time!

Within a few minutes three more of the eggs were rocking, and he could hear, just barely, the tell-tale scratching of beaks trying to crack through. He opened his hamper so he could get to the fish chunks easily and crouched down to wait for the first tiny head to pop through.

He didn’t have long. The biggest egg, the one he’d been so sure was a queen, cracked, and a blue head popped out, mouth open wide as it crowed its triumph at birth and its disappointment at hunger to the world. Teador barely had time to be disappointed that it wasn’t a queen before instinct took over and he’d shoved a chunk of fish into the open mouth, surprising the blue. He clearly hadn’t expected to be fed so easily.

Two more shells fell open, depositing a pair of greens; Teador watched in horror as they pounced on each other in mutual hunger. He couldn’t just let them die! Without thinking, he pulled them apart and stuffed food into both of their mouths, then turned back to the blue he’d started with, who was already begging for more. He’d barely got those three taken care of than another split open, and the blue inside fell onto his own. He pulled that one away, not willing to lose the blue he’d already started on, and stuffed it as well. A third blue fell out of his egg, smaller than his siblings and crying loudly, projecting hunger into the air. Teador gave him fish. None of them were going hungry on his watch.

The rest happened too fast to keep track. Teador tried to concentrate on feelings of affection and welcome that he knew he must, but beyond that it was just an attempt to shove food into hungry mouths before any of them decided to turn cannibal. It was only after he’d stuffed all five into somnolence and sat back to breathe that he realized what he’d done.

Five. He’d Impressed five fire lizards when he only meant to Impress one.

But even so, looking over the five sleeping forms, he found he couldn’t regret it. He’d only had them, what, five minutes? Ten? And already they had a firm grasp on his mind and heart.

Now that they were sleeping, he took the opportunity to look them over. The first to hatch was a big, sturdy blue. Then there were the two greens, both long and lithe. They were almost identical; he was reminded, for a moment, of his eldest sister’s twin babes, sleeping curled around each other in much the same way. Of the other two, one blue had a stockier shape, and the other was quite small and almost dainty.

The other four eggs hadn’t hatched. They were cold when he touched them, and miniscule cracks patterned them, but it was clear the inhabitants had been unable to breach their shells. Teador found some relief in that, though he regretted the lost lives regardless. If they had hatched, no doubt he’d have been compelled to feed them too- he suspected five were going to be enough of a handful as it was, without the other four.

It was odd that there had only been greens and blues in this clutch. He made a note to ask someone about that, when he made it back to the hold, and then panic gripped him. How was he going to explain himself, or his greed?

But it hadn’t been greed, he reminded himself. He had only meant to take one (or maybe two, at most). It had been an accident, really; he was just trying to keep them alive. And there wouldn’t have been time to get them back to the hold before they hatched.

He doubted the Holder would see things that way, but the deed was done. Impression had been made and couldn’t be unmade.

Teador grinned down at the sleeping pile. Well, he had Impressed all right.

**Author's Note:**

> Like this? Want to see more? Uh, well I'm on Tumblr @grifalinas but if you want to read more of the Pern au it's archived @ashnazgtheonering under the tag 'pern au' (very creative). My partners' blogs can be found from there; up to a point I contrived to have all of the threads originate on my blog so that in situations like the other day, when I suddenly decided to reread them, I would have them all handy without needing to hunt them up. (I'm very clever like that.)


End file.
